Five years ago, a rebel band of independent artists made a stop-motion animated short film called MORE. (If you'd like to learn more about the film or to watch it online, click here.) The production of MORE consumed my life and the lives of the creative team for the better part of a year. Though it was only a 6 minute short, it was an absolutely massive undertaking- as it was the first stop-motion film ever shot in the IMAX format. As the writer and director, I knew we faced an epic challenge early on. With a small grant from a family friend and an incredible amount of donated resources and services, I had no means to pay anyone a fair wage. But I demanded from the crew so much time, attention and talent that it probably would've constituted a human rights violation had Amnesty International found out about it. Despite the grueling conditions, constant mistakes, technical challenges and periods of real tension between me and the crew- the film was miraculously completed. When MORE was first screened in the Fall of 1998, this small and very personal film suddenly began to generate critical praise and attention. Within a very short period of time it had screened worldwide, won a lot of awards and was nominated for an Academy-Award® for Best Animated Short Film. We were briefly caught up in a whirlwind of hype and heat and, for a while at least, it seemed like the future was going to be chock full of sweet payback gigs for everyone involved. But time passed and it became increasingly clear that Hollywood and all the movie making machines liked the, er, "heat" of MORE but did not necessarily “get” or “know what to do with” it and us. While MORE had achieved surprising critical success, it was just a six minute animated short film. It had no real potential to find a life outside of the short film community, no hope of ever even breaking even. Once it toured the festival circuit, there was really little else we felt we could do with it. Or so we thought...